Lessons from Waterfowl

So you have seen what Becky did over Thanksgiving, and as much as I enjoy chilling on the couch, I would prefer that couch to be in a duck blind or on a fishing boat. Unfortunately, I checked out those locations during the holiday and there were so such furnishings to be found.

The airboat that got us in and out of the blinds, I think everyone will be using these once global warming gets on with its business

Mike (Longmire) decided this year that the company needed a morale boost. He discovered this after hearing that the employees had divided themselves into two factions; one felt the original high-minded goals of the company had been abandoned for quick profit, the other believed that he had become cold and distant. Nevermind the reasons, he took 10 of the best shooters he could find, and then immediately told most of them their services would not be needed, and took whoever wanted to waste some gunpowder on a hunting and fishing expedition to Seadrift, Texas. (I cannot find a pic of everyone together so you will have to image but it would include Mike Longmire, Ben and Mike Judd, Big and Lil' John Sanchez, Nick Travassosossos, Jared Kimzey, my brothers Shane and Stoney and me.)

Stoney, Nick and Kimzey in a blind

While there we hunted with Capt. Kelley and his guides and stayed at their wonderful accomodations. We were told the hunting and fishing were quite slow, but apparently these guys dont know what slow really means. I've had a dry spell of about 4 fishing trips without a fish, with these guys a slow spell was 15 minutes.

Big J with a keeper redfish

On the first two days Mike decided to take some crackshots with him in his blind, so me and Judd went along. He quickly realized this was a poor decision. The first day we managed to get 6 ducks between us, but not for a lack of trying because we went through 90 shells and scared the hell out of a lot of birds. The second day was much of the same, we even had a flock of suicidal tree ducks that came straight to us at the pace of a sloth and we only managed to get 1 of them even though we had time to reload.

So day 3 rolled around and Judd and I got booted from the bosses blind. So I went with my brothers and Nick, who I figured would be at least as bad shots as I was. I was wrong, we mowed down ducks with reckless abandon, getting our limit within a couple of hours and having to watch dozens of ducks fly around us within a stones throw after that.

The fishing was pretty good, although I didn't get to go on the boat named "Junk" which always managed to bring in the most fish (and stingrays for that matter) but I caught some redfish, catfish, sea trout and hardheads.

Me posing with a blue cat that I wish I would have caught

Me posing with a few of the fish I did catch but was too late to get a before picture with

We had a great time everyday and got to come back to the lodge with massive and delicious meals ready for us prepared by Capt. Kelley's wife (Wendy is her name I think, or maybe I'm thinking of that girl that sells square hamburgers... either way).